


When the Leaves Don't Fall

by incorrigibleIxoreus



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Animal Behaviorist! Derek, Derek is disgruntled, Extraneous Tree Facts, Lots of infodumping, M/M, Park Ranger! Stiles, Stiles doesn't have a filter, Stiles is nosey and it predictably gets him into lots of trouble, Werewolf Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 23:16:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2791283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incorrigibleIxoreus/pseuds/incorrigibleIxoreus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man staring (glaring?) at him looks like he wouldn’t be out of place in a brawny commercial, to be quite honest, what with the sleeves-rolled-up-weather-worn-jeans-tucked-boots-not-to-mention-five-o-clock-shadow-that-would-make-lesser-razors-whither-under-its-intense-stare-and-speaking-of-stare-damn-those-eyes (focus, Stilinski) schtick he’s got going on.<br/>The fact that he’s built like a brick shithouse certainly doesn’t hurt, but the outfit and the scruff and the scowl kind of really pull it all together.<br/>Now all he needs is an axe or something, maybe a threadbare beanie and a blue ox. </p><p>[In which Stiles is a Federal Park Ranger who's been tasked with looking into alleged wolf pack sightings and potential attack concerns and Derek Hale is a Animal Behavior Specialist hired as a consultant to assist him on the case--but for some reason, seems much more interested in sweeping the whole situation under the rug than actually looking into things. And maybe that's just because he really wants to get back to his "research", whatever that entails, or maybe it's just because Stiles is an exhausting person to interact with (but let's be real, here, Stiles is a Fucking Delight, really).<br/>Shenanigans ensue.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Leaves Don't Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seadlings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seadlings/gifts).



**Tree**   
_noun._

_1\. a plant having a permanently woody main stem or trunk, ordinarily growing to a considerable height, and usually developing branches at some distance from the ground._

_2\. any of various shrubs, bushes, and plants, as the banana, resembling a tree in form and size._

_3\. something resembling a tree in shape, as a clothes tree or a crosstree._

_4\. Mathematics, Linguistics, tree diagram._

_5\. family tree._

_6\. a pole, post, beam, bar, handle, or the like, as one forming part of some structure._

  
With regards in all relevance to the park service, however, trees are best classified as perennial plants with elongated stems (usually referred to as trunks), frequently sporting secondary growth (supporting branches) and leaves (or fronds), sometimes limited colloquially to those which are woody or primarily used for lumber.

Personally, Stiles finds this strict definition to be a problematic and somewhat superficial distinction to make, considering the fact that Bamboo is both woody and viable as lumber, but is definitely and unquestionably a Grass and not a Tree by any stretch of the imagination, any more than Sugar Cane is a tree, and anyway, you could argue that it’s really got a lot more to do with scale than shape (because something that looks rather much like a giant fern or stationary palm frond, such as those heavily indigenous to tropical and subtropical zones, is still going to very loudly reverberate in your head as a “tree” and you know it no matter what your high school biology teacher might’ve said, and even Wikipedia agrees with him on that point).

Because, after all, “tree” is a pretty loose term, not particularly scientific at all, referring to a wide-ranging and far-flung slew of independently evolved botanical species that just so happen to have woken up one morning and decided that, evolutionarily speaking, being REALLY TALL was a very, very good idea—and yes, he knows evolution doesn’t work that way and sure, Charles Darwin is probably cavorting with a great deal of sour dead-old-guy humor in his grave at this point, and likely has at many points in the past, if at all, due to Stiles’ more or less trademark diatribes at this point,  and his occasional looseness when it comes to the specificity of facts in the face of REALLY expressing what he means to say on a subject, and isn’t that the whole point of it anyway though? 

Like, if they get the point, who cares how precisely exactly cut-and-dry yes-thank-you-we-could-have-just-read-that-out-of-a-text-book-or-maybe-a-travel-brochure-while-our-eyes-glazed-over-with-boredom it is (or isn’t, as it were, and y’know, supposedly that’s the problem because ONCE AGAIN he’s been taken off rotation with the kid tours, which are quite possibly his favourite thing about being a Park Ranger, anyway, and he knows he’s their favourite too—all the teachers say so, and some of them specifically request him—but no, apparently it’s more important to “Stick to the Script, Stilinski”,  even when young minds are seriously hanging in the balance here).

Stiles scowls blankly out at the open dirt path ahead of him, fingers gripping the steering wheel of his jeep maybe a tiny bit too tight as he fights the urge to swing back around and tell his supervisor exactly where he can shove his script.  
 _Not in front of the kids, Stilinski,_ He had to chide himself, hating more than a little bit how his internal voice suddenly sounded like an unholy matrimony between his supervisor, his high-school lacrosse coach, and his dad.

Jesus Christ. 

Biting back a heavy sigh he forces his fingers to loosen their white-knuckle grip, turning instead to drumming with an incessant and almost irritating—even to himself, alone in the car at this point—rhythm against the worn leather wrapping (almost worn through in a couple spots, metal showing through patchily and forlornly, kind of like mange when he stops to think about it, and he really should buy one of those cushy ergonomic covers for it that Scott’s always raving about now that he’s finally gotten his own ride—but there’s something inherently comforting about knowing exactly where his hands fit, where they’ve always fit, and it’s the same reason he hasn’t tried to sell his Baby or trade it in even though he’s had it since high school at this point and really, it’s more than a little worse for the wear—the steering wheel’s not even the half of it, not by a long shot).

Another deep sigh, and this time it’s like the wind blowing out at the end of a storm, his lungs almost collapsing with the weight of the expulsion of the last dregs of his frustration as distraction gets the better of him (once again) and he decides (not for the first time) that it’s just as well.  
He's never been particularly suited to being an angry person, anyway.

His eyes—bright, woody brown, maybe a little too big for his face and always a bit too wide for anyone’s comfort, really—sweep upwards from the path towards the heady canopy above, faded by the glare of his windshield that could really, really do with a little TLC and maybe a good scrub-down at this point (life in the woods has not been kind to his Baby, no, not even a little bit).

The trees are, as always, majestically indifferent in the face of his latest outburst, which for some reason he’s always found strangely comforting.  
Like no matter what he does, no matter what he says, they’ll always be there, solidly not giving a fuck.  
No judgment or exasperation or pity or second-hand embarrassment.

Everyone knows that trees are great, y’know, what with the whole oxygen thing and the carbon footprint shit, and all that.  
Some people even know that they’re responsible for protecting against soil erosion, that without them all that good, hearty loam that the underbrush thrives on (even despite the overwhelming shade cast by their branches, the whole point of that evolutionary drive to get as tall as possible in order to compete for sunlight the way animals compete for edible resources) would just get washed away, stripped from the land by every reckless storm and flash flood till nothing was left but clay and rock, and nothing would grow (not even the trees).

But a lot of people don’t really seem to grasp just how incredible they really are, even beyond that.  
Even within that scale, actually.   
The scale of it all is one of his favourite things, for that matter.

Like, for example, did you know that a single healthy tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in a single year?  
As much as one whole ton of carbon dioxide by the time it’s barely forty years old.  
Just one tree.  
And that same, singular, healthy, good-sized tree produces enough oxygen to sustain breathable levels for two fully grown human beings, all by itself.And hey, y’know, if you’re not really the whole hippy-dippy-hug-the-trees environmentalist type, sure, fine, whatever—but then there’s the fact that planting trees in urban areas reduces the impact of urban hotspots—and planting trees around office buildings reduces temperature control costs by around 30 percent for AC and up to 50 percent for the heat, and how fucking cool is that?

Even in the unkindest environments, the kind of environments that thrive on wiping out their entire populations, entire species, trees are still helpful as fuck.   
Always giving.

And sure, maybe they’re not sentient, and maybe the fact that “The Giving Tree” was one of his favourite books during his formative years might’ve kind of warped his opinion on the subject just a little bit, but that’s not the fucking point.  
Whether they mean to be or not, it’s absolutely impossible to argue that trees aren’t one of the best things this tumbling chaotic space-rock has to offer.  
Trees are just…good.

In general, period.

 But no, y’know, it’s all about hardwood floors and cheap ikea furniture and thinly veiled exasperation with tight-lipped smiles and grudging donations to take the edge off of the guilt of owning a private jet with a carbon footprint the size of Montana, because at some point down the line it became the social standard to be only barely tolerant of the idea that, hey, maybe these life forms are actually MAJORLY important to the survival of the human race in the long run and not actually here solely for your convenience???

 Okay, now he’s pissed again.

Brow furrowed and a third, final, deep heaving sigh hisses out between Stiles’ teeth as he tries, in vain, to smooth out his scowl before snatching up his kit from the passenger seat and slamming the door on his Jeep (he instantly regrets it, but fights the urge to turn around and stroke the metal and apologize because he is suddenly keenly aware—now outside of his vehicle and somewhat less distracted by the constant turmoil of his inner dialogue—that he actually has an audience, and that he’s not entirely sure just for how long that’s been the case, which is more than a little bit embarrassing on so, so, so many levels).

 

“Um,”

 

He states, rather eloquently in his opinion, because at least he didn’t yelp this time like he would have his first day on the job (and did, in fact, because apparently startling rookies on their first time out in the woods by themselves is tradition or something, or all of his coworkers are serious assholes, really it’s a toss-up at this point, and—back to the matter at hand, Stilinski, focus).

The man staring (glaring?) at him looks like he wouldn’t be out of place in a brawny commercial, to be quite honest, what with the sleeves-rolled-up-weather-worn-jeans-tucked-boots-not-to-mention-five-o-clock-shadow-that-would-make-lesser-razors-whither-under-its-intense-stare-and-speaking-of-stare-damn-those-eyes (focus, Stilinski) schtick he’s got going on. The fact that he’s built like a brick shithouse certainly doesn’t hurt, but the outfit and the scruff and the scowl kind of really pull it all together. Now all he needs is an axe or something, maybe a threadbare beanie and a blue ox.

 

“You’re late.”

 

Late?  
 _Late,_ he said.  
Late for a date in the woods—ha, that rhymed, but seriously, what?   
Stiles’ expression contorts rapid-fire from its previous levels of annoyance, to shock, to confusion, and then back to annoyance again.

He’s a federal park ranger, for fuck’s sake, not some high school kid who overslept his alarm again (he ended up having to buy about three before his dad stopped making him go to bed OBSCENELY early on weeknights and even then it was touch-and-go most days, because seriously, it’s not like he _intentionally_ stayed up all night, and having to lie in bed for twice as long with nothing to do or entertain him but staring at the ceiling while his thoughts took turns running cartwheels didn’t really change anything, c’mon) and who did this (admittedly handsome, but wow, rude) stranger even think he is?

 Because, seriously, maybe he’s a little bit distracted and more than a little bit absent-minded, but he’s still pretty sure he’d have the sense not to have set up a meeting in the middle of no-where, or at the very least remembered having done so, and—oh.

 In the middle of his internal rant (god he hopes all of that was internal, because judging by the growingly irritated expression on Mr. Brawny’s face it’s entirely possible that some of that might’ve slipped out through the cracks) he’d managed to glance distractedly back towards his jeep and catch sight of the Station—not even twenty yards back.

He's still in the parking lot.

He’d been so distracted he hadn’t even managed to start his car and actually leave for the day, like he’d planned to do—a grand exit with much loud, gratuitous, hopefully internal griping—after being told off for his “eccentric teaching style” (again) and having been taking off the teaching rotation roster (again).

 

“I can come back later if now’s not a good time.”  


 

The gruff voice pulls him back out of his swirling thoughts again, and there’s a certain edge to it—a grudging, sharp, my-patience-is-lower-than-average-at-best-and-right-now-you’re-really-pushing-it-bub—that tells Stiles, without a doubt, that _Now is Definitely A Good Time._

 

“Shit, no, sorry, now’s great, I was just—um.”

 

He pauses, hand scrubbing through his hair as he squints at the man, desperately trying to place him and trying to get a better handle on his mental track at least for the next ten minutes.  
Realizing rather quickly that it’s going to be one or the other, and considering the deepening scowl on the stranger’s face that speaks volumes about how little patience he’s got left for any further off-topic tangents (whether he’s party to them or not), Stiles opts for the latter option.  


“Sorry, who are you again?”

 

The guy scowls harder (wow and Stiles did not even remotely think that was possible), shoulders ridiculously rigid for a few incredibly intimidating seconds before something goes out of him suddenly, and instead he scrubs a hand across his face, irritation apparently giving way to severe exasperation and a sort of long-suffering patience (the kind of look Stiles is well familiar with at this point in his life—his dad trademarked it, without a doubt, and must’ve spent the better half of his son’s high school and college years teaching it to every single authority figure in Stiles’ life because it seemed to follow him relentlessly, no matter how far from home he’s managed to get).

 

“Derek Hale. The Animal behavioral specialist. You’ve been having alleged wolf sightings and concerns about potential attacks in the area.”

 

Oh. Right.  
The man’s unmistakable questions-phrased-as-statements flat intonation (another thing Stiles is unfortunately overly familiar with) suggests without room for argument that he really, really should know about this already, and Stiles’ face contorts mildly as he tries to sort through the mess that is his daily thought-pile for some hint or clue as to why, exactly, there is a fairly irritable lumberjack-looking animal behaviorist staring him down in the parking lot.

 His fingers are tap-tap-tapping on the side of his kit (contained more or less neatly inside a weather-worn leather satchel that’s almost as bad off as his steering wheel at this point) as he remembers the bit of conversation that happened to take place between him and his supervisor regarding a new assignment—one taking place during his usual teaching schedule— _before_ he stormed off in a blaze of distracted-but-well-intentioned-and-somewhat-indignant glory.

The man’s—Hale, Derek Hale (repeat it, Stilinski, or you’re gonna forget it, and this guy doesn’t seem like the sort you really want to ask his name for more than once)—starting to look impatient again so Stiles quickly nods, forcing what he hopes is a bright and reassuring grin (because wow if his competence wasn’t in question before it probably is now) and gesturing back towards the station (from whence he really, really, really hopes Hale hadn’t just come from to retrieve him, because that would mean he would’ve been told how to find him by his supervisors, and jesus christ could this day get anymore mortifying?).

 

“Right, of course, sure. My office?”

 

 ---------------------------------------------------

 

 

This was not how Derek Hale had planned on spending his afternoon.  
Well, technically it was—the appointment had been on the books for about a month now, after all, and it was part of his job as the local—Animal Behavioral specialist to make sure that it got…handled.  
Quietly if possible.  
Quickly, ideally. 

But the kid—and there was no way this guy was older than 23, seriously—was babbling like a windstorm and quite frankly it was starting to make his head hurt.  Derek scowled, rubbing his hands across his face before pinching the bridge of his nose as he waited for the Ranger to take a breath—just take a fucking breath already holy shit, who has that kind of lung capacity anyway—and give him another few moment’s reprieve from the barrage of enthusiastic info-dumping that he was beginning to suspect was a regular occurrence with this kid.  
Unavoidable, even.

At this point he wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly he was talking about anymore—it had started out with an awkwardly stretching silence as the two of them walked back towards the station, which, to be quite honest, Derek hadn’t actually minded all that much—but evidently the Ranger had pretty quickly reached his breaking point and started instead babbling in rapid-fire bursts, first with a few questions apparently intended for the Behaviorist’s benefit; something or other about what he did he feel were the most efficient teaching methods for molding young minds, which apparently the other man felt pretty passionate about, although even that subject only stuck on for a few minutes before an embarrassed expression crossed his face and he rapidly changed the subject to several other topics.

First it was trees, for whatever reason (“so, did you know that 1/3rd of the entire US is covered in woodlands?”), then the role of Rangers and their duties with regards to the National Forestry Service, then back to their summer teaching programs—and another embarrassed expression before he quickly started detailing, instead, their responsibilities to the local camp grounds and hiking groups, which led to bird watching groups and detailing what seemed to be an incredibly impressive and maybe excessively comprehensive listing of the local wildlife—to the point where Derek had stopped bothering trying to actually keep up and had resorted to more or less tuning him out entirely.

 

“Ranger.”

 

He ventures, maybe a little bit more gruffly than necessary, the first second there was a pause long enough that he could interrupt without having to raise his voice—probably a wise choice, considering how the kid kind of jumped and looked a cross between guilty and half-way prepared to bolt. Derek’s brows find themselves rapidly relocating upwards towards his hairline, the scowl smoothed out only temporarily by his surprise at the kid’s reaction; shit, he’d just wanted him to shut up for a second, not scare the pants off him.

 

In fact, now that he’d actually settled for half a tick, Derek could admit that he wasn’t halfway bad on the eyes—with his mouth shut, anyway.  
The whole wide-eyed deer in headlights look doesn’t hurt, either, although it quickly dissolves into something a bit more self-deprecating as a slow, crooked grin tugs at the side of his mouth and he scratches at the back of his head awkwardly, thick brown hair already mussed—likely from the absolutely ridiculous Ranger’s hat Derek had spied tossed somewhat haphazardly in the passenger floorboard of the jeep the kid had been sitting in when he had found him. 

The awkward silence was back again, stretching on half a second too long before Derek even noticed—which, actually, he only really registered fully because the Ranger’s lips had begun to part again, haltingly, before he cleared his throat, rolling his shoulders slightly and obviously more than a little uncomfortable under the Behaviorist’s intense glare.

 

“Stiles. I—um. Is me. Stiles, I mean. You don’t have to call me Ranger, I mean, unless you really want to, I don’t know, you don’t look like the kind of person to really insist on formality—not that you look like you don’t respect—I mean. Shit. Just. Call me Stiles, okay?”

 

Arching a single brow at the stuttering admission and awkwardly flapping hands, quietly realizing in the back of his head that he hadn’t actually even managed to ask the guy’s name yet—to be perfectly honest, it hadn’t even really occurred to him that he even needed to know it; he was here for business, he had planned to get it resolved as quickly as possible and then leave just as quickly, hopefully with no need for follow up. How hard could it be to assure some rookie Ranger that the attacks and sightings being reported lately with a bit of a discomfiting regularity, were more than a little bit unlikely—given that wolves had been all but extinct in the State of California for several decades now—and more likely the overly worried concerns of yuppie campers who wouldn’t know a real wolf from a bear trap if it was gnawing on their tent struts.

 That assessment had been made before he’d arrived, of course, and before he realized that the kid he was going to have to convince this of was a veritable waterfall of predominantly useless information with the apparent attention span of a hyperactive five year old on a sugar rush; whether this made it easier or harder, Derek hadn’t entirely decided yet.

 

“Stiles,” he intones quietly, eyes narrowing with an assessing look as he continued to stare the fidgety kid down.  
  
“Alright. Perhaps we should talk about the case.”

  

 ---------------------------------------------------

 

  
Stiles wishes he could say the rest of the meeting went better than their actual—well, meeting, hah, no pun intended—had, but.  
Well.  
That would be a lie, and according to his dad, he’d never really been particularly good at that (which on the one hand, was just as well, and on the other, was maybe a little bit not exactly fair, since his dad was the Sheriff, after all, and had a lot more experience dealing with much more practiced liars, and really, Stiles had never had a chance to properly develop the habit anyway even if he’d wanted to, like, c’mon, you can’t go after a level 50 boss right out of the training spawn point and expect to actually get anywhere, right? Not that his dad was—anyway, lying, not great, not good at it, kinda pointless at this point, although that didn’t mean he didn’t still _try_ sometimes, just not usually to himself, or when there wasn’t something important at stake).

The point was, the whole afternoon was just one long, drawn out sequence of awkward moments and half-baked, more or less one-sided conversation (well, if you could call rambling nervously ‘conversation’, but at least it gave him something to focus on besides the fact that he was alone in his office with an incredibly and unfairly attractive stranger who looked like he wanted to light the whole building on fire, preferably with Stiles inside) with brief interjections in that gruff, rough-around-the-edges voice that was like the auditory impersonation of the guy’s facial scruff (and, seriously, how is it even possible to look that deliberately put together and ruggedly disheveled at the same time?) that left Stiles feeling completely strung-out by the end of the day, slumped in his desk-chair watching the sun set in a golden burst over the crowns of the trees through the dirty glass of his office window.

They’d agreed (grudgingly, on Derek’s part—and really, Stiles wasn’t _that_ annoying to be around, was he?) to meet up the next day to survey a couple of the locations of the supposed sightings, since, even though the Behaviorist had insisted (incredibly firmly, actually) that there hadn’t been any wolves local to California since the 1920s outside of a few stragglers here and there, and that, by all accounts, logically speaking, it was highly improbable that an actual pack had managed to make itself at home in the preserve without anyone noticing long before now—which made sense.  
Really, it did.

But still, there was a niggling feeling in the bottom of Stiles’ gut on the topic, and maybe it was a hold-over from all those years helping his Dad on cases, but he had predilection for taking eye witness testimony seriously—or at least giving it the benefit of the doubt, especially when there had been multiple sightings by completely unrelated camping and hiking groups over the past five weeks, and that was just too much for Stiles to brush off as simple city-bred overreaction or coincidence.   If anything, it almost seemed like Derek would really rather just shove the whole situation under the rug, which didn’t quite sit well with Stiles, although he supposed it probably had more to do with him than the case itself.

It was fishy.

Sighing somewhat explosively and willing a bit more energy to find its way back into his jittery limbs, the young Ranger rolled his shoulders forward, stretching his arms out in front of him and cracking his knuckles, fingers interlocked, in the way that his Dad hated—the way he always did before getting deep into the nitty-gritty of another deep research digging session, laptop flipped open and lit up on his desk before he even had to think about it, its bright blue-ish light contrasting starkly with the warm, whiskey-golden glow that had been cast across the interior of his office in the hour since Derek had left.

Stiles reaches across his desk, tagging the “on” button to his personal electric kettle that sat in the corner (his coworkers had rapidly tired of the pot in the employee lounge constantly being drained just as soon as it had finished making enough for a single mug, and so one Christmas his father had surprised him with his very own—eco-friendly, all recycled materials, low-energy consumption—to keep in his office and keep the mutinous grumbling from his peers to a more manageable minimum) while his computer booted itself up painfully slowly.

 Minutes later, the mug of steaming coffee already sat forgotten and rapidly cooling by the wayside, and Stiles was buried several tabs deep in research—first on wolves, their migratory patterns and general behavior and pack dynamics, and then, reluctantly giving into his more personal impulses, the Hale family itself, and the work and education history of the green-eyed grump who’d been his primary distraction for the majority of the day. 

There wasn’t much to find, unfortunately, Stiles quickly discovered, that fishy-niggling feeling in the back of his gut intensifying as a frown tugs at his mouth somewhat severely.

Derek Hale, 28.  
Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in Animal Science and Wildlife Biology from Cornell University and a Masters in Wildlife Conservation and Management from the University of Tucson, Arizona.  
And that….was it.  
Apparently he was on hire with the Federal Forestry Service as a conservation consultant, but that was really about all Stiles could find, and not for want of trying.

Brow furrowed, the young Ranger takes a long, dragging sip from his—now completely cold and somewhat sour tasting, he really needed to change that filter—cup of black coffee (he doesn’t care for cream; when he inevitably forgets the mug somewhere overnight or, god forbid, in his jeep, it was always ten times more disgusting if there had been dairy in it—lesson learned, and when it came to sugar, he knew even a single packet would have him basically bouncing off the walls, so really, in the interest of self- and career-preservation, he’d discovered fairly quickly that it was better just to abstain and let his taste buds suffer).

 Not that Stiles made a habit of googling people (okay, maybe his curiosity got the better of him a few times, particularly when it came to his basically-brother-best-friend’s habitually incredibly abhorrent taste in women, but that totally didn’t count), but usually he had a lot more luck digging at least Something up.

Like a family history.

Or a hometown.

A facebook page?

Seriously, who under the age of forty didn’t have a facebook page these days?

He sighs again, spindly fingers reluctantly unwrapping themselves from around his mug and setting it back down on his desk, palming his laptop closed and shoving back from his desk now that the light in his office had quite faded past twilight dim almost to full night.  
Maybe Scott could help him.  
Questionable taste in romance aside, he’d managed to make something of a name for himself in the Bureau, and on the rare occasion when Stiles caught him in a particularly good mood, he could sometimes be persuaded to do a little off-the-books investigation, for the sake of old times and all that.

That was, however, a problem for tomorrow.

Stiles stretched stiffly, elbows and shoulders popping as he yawned somewhat loudly, face contorted, before shuffling his things back into the busted up leather satchel hanging off the back of his chair and heading out of his office for the night.  
Not like much could change in twenty four hours, anyway, he reasoned as he flicked off the last of the Station lights and locked the door behind him.

Tomorrow would come soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> SO the premise for this AU gets a little tangled and I don't want to info-dump on it too badly [show don't tell and all that], but just to clarify a few things that are relevant without being too spoilery.
> 
> First of, in this Universe, the Hale fire didn't happen, so Derek's a tad bit better adjusted than in canon.  
> Not a whole helluvalot, mind you, because Derek wouldn't be Derek without the inherent broody Sourwolf persona all bundled up with middle-child syndrome insecurities, but, y'know.  
> Not completely fucking traumatized, either.  
> It also assumes/adopts the headcanon that Derek had/has the potential to be "Natural"/"True" alpha, without having to inherit or steal the power from another wolf, and by the time he reached maturity it began to manifest itself.  
> I've adopted a particular headcanon regarding the pack structure/social development of born [as opposed to bitten] wolves; in natural wild wolf packs, dominance structure is actually generally familial-based, with the "alpha" couple being the parental unit, and the "betas" being the offspring that either help raise the new cubs or leave off to found their own packs in their own territory.  
> Thus, applied to werewolves, those with the "natural"/"true" alpha potential generally leave off eventually on good terms and set out on their own--either by biting/"adopting" bitten wolves in their new territory or by finding a mate and going about it the "old fashioned way", as it were.  
> This story takes place a handful of years after Derek's alpha potential began to manifest itself; he was able to postpone his responsibilities for a while due to the pursuit of higher education [which removed him from his family's territory and avoided any kind of natural conflict that might've been sparked by too many alphas in close vicinity], but he's still kind of dragging his feet.  
> Suffice to say, shit's going to happen that will light a fire under his ass.
> 
> Because the Hale fire never happened, all of the relevant plot-catalyst type things related to Scott getting bitten also never happened, so Stiles is still in the dark about Werewolves at this point.  
> He's a sharp cookie, though, so we'll see how long that lasts.


End file.
